


Step By Step

by sariane



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Pacific Rim (2013), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, Background Romance, Gen, Jaegers, Kaiju (Pacific Rim), M/M, basically the life story of bucky barnes but with jaegers, named after superheroes, named after supervillains, winter soldier - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-09
Updated: 2013-10-09
Packaged: 2017-12-26 10:23:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/964829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sariane/pseuds/sariane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky is thirteen when the first kaiju attacks.</p><p>This is what happens next.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Step By Step

**Author's Note:**

> In case anyone isn't familiar with fusion AUs, within this story is a mix of characters and storylines from Marvel Comics and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. These story elements are set in the Pacific Rim universe and contain elements from the movie and novelization. The story doesn't gel perfectly with either canon in the name of creative license. (Or something. Idk.) I borrowed a few lines that you might recognize, too.
> 
> Many thanks to my beta, [reinventweather](http://reinventweather.tumblr.com/), whose comments were a huge help! And, although she isn't even in the fandom, thanks to [Allison](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Pardon_the_egg_salad) for talking through some stuff with me. You guys are awesome.
> 
> Note: Although “Yasha” is not a canon alternate name for Bucky, it’s commonly used in fandom, so I have used it here for lack of another name during a certain point in the story.
> 
> Warnings:  
> -Canon-typical violence.  
> -Misleading (non-romantic) relationship. (Details: One person hides another character’s identity from them.)  
> -Off-screen character death and discussion of character death. (This is still set in the Pacific Rim ‘verse, so…sorry.)  
> -Swearing.  
> -SPOILERS! for Pacific Rim and the Captain America: Winter Soldier comic arc (although you shouldn't assume that things are going to be exactly the same).
> 
> Please let me know if I've missed any warnings or if you have any questions!

PROLOGUE

Bucky is thirteen when the first kaiju attacks. He remembers sitting in the group home, crowding around the tiny TV with the others, watching day after day as the monster made its way down the West Coast. The others are relieved when the army finally nukes it, but Bucky’s dad was a military man. He knows the cost of the strike.

He also knows that more kaiju will come.

It’s inevitable. The kaiju come through slowly at first, but soon enough, they’re more than the world can handle.  Bucky watches as talk shows and magazines and comic books fill with the names of Jaeger pilots instead of movie stars.

He knows all of the Rangers’ names: Peggy Carter. Howard Stark. Nick Fury. Phil Coulson. They pilot ridiculous machines with ridiculous names, like Agent Shield or Howling Commandos. And then there’s Steve Rogers, the youngest Jaeger pilot at seventeen, leading Captain America into victory.

But the kaiju keep coming, and people keep dying.

The group home fills up until they start calling it an orphanage again. Finally, Bucky sneaks out a window at midnight with a backpack filled with all of his worldly possessions: a ration card, a couple of comics, some clothes, and fifty dollars from mowing lawns and walking dogs.

At fourteen years old, Bucky lies on the enlistment forms and joins the Jaeger Academy.

*

2017

“Barnes, front and center.”

Bucky salutes Marshal Phillips and steps onto the mat in the center of the Kwoon, ignoring the stares of the other wannabe Rangers. The eyes of the world will be on him one day, if he’s up to snuff. This is nothing.

“Today, you’ll be fighting this young man,” Phillips says in his usual harsh, unflappable tone. “Don’t make an embarrassment of me, Barnes.”

Bucky adjusts his grip on his hanbō. When the new guy steps onto the mat, Bucky takes a moment to size him up.

He’s blond, handsome, and very young. Despite his age, the kid is tall and stocky, made of muscles and power. There’s a fierce determination on his face that makes Bucky wonder what this guy has left to prove.

“Well?” Bucky taunts, raising an eyebrow. “You gonna stare at me all day, Blondie?”

For a moment, Bucky catches a hint of amusement on the man's face -- and then he's blocking his first strike.

 _Thwack_.

He fights like a hurricane, quick and brutal, beating at Bucky from all sides. The sound of their hanbō echo against each other in the Kwoon -- _thwack, thwack, thwack --_ and Bucky can barely catch his breath.

Something whips through the air towards Bucky. He moves to duck, but he's caught in the side with a sharp blow as the man sees through a hole in his defenses. _Smack._

"One -- zero," Blondie says. He isn't smiling, but he's happy about something. Bucky's putting up a good fight.

“I gave you that one,” Bucky laughs, wiping sweat from his forehead, “so you won’t feel bad when I kick your ass.”

Blondie raises his eyebrows, but he doesn't say a word.

Bucky might be outmatched in size, but he's fast and slight. He's sixteen, all angles and limbs, and he's ready to show that he knows how to use them.

One moment, he's casually twirling the hanbō in his hands, the next, he lets loose a torrent of blows. Blondie barely has enough time to block the strike before there's another. And another.

Bucky isn't holding back now, striking left, right, left again. A few moves pass and he goes for the guy's ankle, hits him hard. Blondie doesn't even wince.

"One -- one," Bucky says, straightening. "If you want to give up now, I'll be easy on you."

Blondie raises his eyebrows. "You've got a big mouth," he replies.

"Thanks," Bucky grins with an obliging tilt of his head.

After that, they're a whirlwind of movement, misses and dodges, twirling limbs and quick steps. Bucky snaps into a rhythm that uses no particular pattern. It's like a puzzle that falls into place in his mind. It's like breathing.

Finally, the other man brings the hanbō into Bucky’s face and stops an inch from his chin.

“Two – one,” he says, a smile playing on his lips. “Your big mouth makes a good target.”

“I’ve seen enough,” Phillips interrupts, before Bucky has a chance to make an offhand comment.

Blondie snaps to attention. He follows Phillips and the higher-ups out of the Kwoon.

“Good match, Rogers,” Bucky calls after them as they leave.

He thinks he catches a smile on the guy’s face before he leaves, the whispering of shocked cadets following his footsteps. Bucky puts his hanbō away and ignores the stares.

He’s not an idiot. He recognizes a superstar when he’s fighting one.

*

“James Buchanan Barnes, I’d like you to meet Steve Rogers, your co-pilot.”

Rogers smiles as he shakes Bucky’s hand, his grip firm, and says, “I look forward to working with you.”

Bucky just raises an eyebrow.

It’s not until they’re strapped into a Jaeger together that Bucky realizes he’s totally genuine.

“You ready to follow me into battle, soldier?” Steve half-jokes, just before their first drop.

“Hell, no,” Bucky laughs. “But I’m ready to follow my friend.”

Together, they lead Star Soldier to its first kill, a mess of red, white, blue, and steely gray against the drab and scaly Hydra (which fortunately doesn’t live up to its name).

After that, it’s three years of Jaegers and the Drift, stardom and celebrity, falling into each other’s beds laughing at jokes and sharing Bucky’s iPod and kicking kaiju ass. Three years of interviews and talk shows, award ceremonies, and even their own comic book. Three years with Rangers like Namor and Toro and the gang of misfits that take up the name of the first Jaeger and become the Howling Commandos.

Bucky knows without asking not to talk about Peggy, just as Steve knows not to talk about Bucky's sister, and they both know not to talk about Bucky's spike of jealousy whenever a pretty girl smiles at Steve. (There are some things they see in the Drift that they don't want to look at too closely. Most things, actually.)

Three years, and Steve's eyes light up when he smiles and slings an arm around Bucky’s shoulders, and Bucky's heart beats a little faster than it should when Steve slides into his bed, hours after a Drift, and folds himself around Bucky like he’s never going to let him go.

It takes three years, and then Bucky finally allows himself to think for a moment that he's happy, that he's found the thing in his life that he needs to make it all worthwhile.

So he blames himself when they go up against Zola and it all goes to shit.

The Conn-Pod is torn open. The air on his face is freezing, the mist from the ocean like ice in his lungs.

He tries to hold on, but he can’t, not even with Steve reaching out for him and screaming.

The last thing Bucky hears is Steve yelling his name, inside and outside of his mind.

*

_“Must be an American. Fishermen, pah!”_

“ _Must’ve been crazy, being out there with a kaiju on the loose.”_

He comes to consciousness gasping and freezing, gulping in air and feeling like ice has frozen up his lungs.

 _“Calm down,_ ” someone says. It’s a woman with long red hair and a black uniform. _“You’re safe.”_ She hesitates, and then adds in accented English, _“You can speak Russian, right? You were on a Russian boat, but you look—“_

 _“Yes,”_ he says, discovering that he knows the language. _“But…I…”_

 _“I’m Natalia,”_ the woman says, “ _I’m the Ranger who found you in the shipwreck.”_

He looks around. He’s in a medical bay, the people around him wearing military uniforms and thick coats. He’s freezing, he realizes. His hand shakes violently when he pulls the blankets up around him.

His hand.

“Where’s my--?” he starts in English, looking over to his left arm.

“ _You’re going to be alright,_ ” the woman – Natalia says as he rips at his hospital shirt trying to find his arm.

“But – what happened – how did--?”

“ _We will fix it,”_ she promises, covering his right hand with her own as he clutches at the stump of his left arm, gasping in shock. “ _We will figure it out. They will make you a prosthesis, they will--“_

 _“Who the hell are you?”_ he yells in Russian, shoving her aside. He barely makes it out of the bed before Natalia stabs him with a needle and he feels the will draining out of him.

“ _I’m sorry,”_ she’s saying, voice heavy in his ears, “ _you’ll hurt yourself.”_

 _Who the hell am I?_ he wonders as he drifts back into unconsciousness.

*

They call him Yasha, for lack of another name.

He can’t remember anything – not who he was, where he was from, or how he was shipwrecked. Out of a sense of pity (or duty, perhaps), they give him a metal arm, clothes to wear, and a job cleaning up the Vladivostok Shatterdome. 

It’s enough to keep him in liquor and keep his ration card punched, and when it isn’t, he doesn’t hesitate to take from those who have a little too much. Rangers have big egos and big mouths. It’s easy to choose a target.

His arm is a weapon, like a Jaeger, strong and silver, but bulky. He doesn’t mind, just covers it with a heavy coat and gloves when he goes out and makes sure to wear short sleeves in the Shatterdome. It’s intimidating. He likes it when people keep their distance.

He spends his nights wandering through the city, half-wishing someone would call out his name, using computer terminals to search for some record of a missing man. But it is wartime, and there are many missing men. Too many.

It’s been barely two months into his time in Vladivostok when he’s caught by surprise while walking in an alleyway. A man sneaks up behind him and holds a knife to his throat.

Before Yasha knows what he’s doing, the man is in a puddle on the cement, his own knife pressed into his windpipe, begging for his life in Russian.

Yasha drops the knife and steps on it, breaking the steel from the hilt. He turns his back on the man and leaves him lying on the ground, throat bleeding, arm broken -- but alive.

Yasha feels no guilt.

He stops looking for answers after that.

Every day, he wipes down the red mats in the Kwoon, washing away dirt, sweat, and sometimes, blood. _This is their temple,_ he thinks. It’s more than just fighting, martial arts, and fencing. It’s where cadets and Rangers alike come to prove themselves. It’s where they forge their legacy in strikes and punches and bruises.

Yasha watches from the corner of the room as Petrovitch’s students train, day after day. They wipe their mouths and spit on the floors when they know he’s watching. Yasha clenches his teeth and grips his mop until the wood begins to split under his new metal hand. He doesn’t say a word.

 _They aren’t worth half of her_ , he thinks as he watches Dmitri sparring with Natalia, finding the cracks in her resolve and breaking through them.

“Ahh!” Natalia gasps, flying back after being struck hard. Dmitri steps back, holding his hanbō triumphantly, and laughs. Her lip is split, and it bleeds onto her chin.

_“Four - zero.”_

“ _Am I too much for you?”_ Dmitri taunts. “ _Would you like to surrender?”_

Natalia sets her jaw and glares at Dmitri. Yasha bites back a smile when he recognizes the steel in her eyes. She wipes her split lip with the back of her hand.

Then, she springs into action, diving towards Dmitri with a new intensity. The loud smack of their hanbō echoes through the Kwoon, drawing the stares of the constant audience of wannabes and trainers.

Dmitri goes left and Natalia dodges right, goes for his throat and his gun, his knees and his legs. He blocks her, barely able to get a swing in edgewise, until Yasha sees an opening in her defense. He almost cries out.

Dmitri sees it, too. He strikes hard, but Natalia strikes first, cracking him hard in the breastbone.

He steps back, gasping for air, while Natalia just straightens, her hanbō held across her body.

_“Four – one, Dmitri is the winner.”_

But it’s not a victory, not when Natalia went down on her own terms. Dmitri knows it, too, and throws his hanbō on the ground, muttering as he leaves the Kwoon.

He brushes past Yasha on his way out.

 _“Look, it’s the bitch’s pet,”_ Dmitri mutters to Yasha, “ _wonder what kind of tricks she’s taught it. Can it sit? Roll over? Lick its ass?”_

Before he even knows what he’s doing, Yasha is throwing himself at Dmitri, striking him with the wooden mop handle. He cracks the mop over Dmitri’s head and strikes him in the stomach, driving Dmitri down to the ground, the mop held under Dmitri’s chin, over his neck.

“Go fuck yourself,” Yasha growls in Dmitri’s ear.

“ _Yasha!”_ Natalia yells sharply.

It takes four of them (two cadets, a Ranger, and Natalia) to pull him off Dmitri, all of them frowning at Yasha’s strength and the power in his metal arm.

“ _What the hell?”_ she mutters to him as he steps back. Dmitri gets to his feet, glaring, and makes his exit without another word. “ _You can’t do that, Yasha, you’ll jeopardize—“_

_Clap. Clap. Clap._

When they turn, Petrovitch himself stands behind them, clapping softly.

He looks at Natalia in her training clothes, then at Yasha with his custodial jumpsuit, and purses his lips.

“ _So, you can take down my best,”_ Petrovitch says. _“But, can you do that with a Jaeger?”_

*

Black Widow is her name.

She’s a beautiful Mark V, sleek and black, small but just as powerful as the hulking Jaegers that fill the rest of the Shatterdome.

He and Natalia become a team. Black Widow takes down kills faster than anyone yet. They are unstoppable, unflappable, the jewel in the crown of the Russian Jaegers.

She is his rock in the storm, and he is the quiet before it. It turns out that his lack of memories make the Drift easier, make Natalia’s hard mind flexible, make his own head seem less empty. There are nights when he can’t sleep, when even brawls in the city’s bars and a bottle of vodka can’t quiet the ticking of his mind. He feels like he’s had something ripped from him, something he’ll never find, and Yasha finds himself mourning a loss he can’t quite understand.

“ _Can’t sleep?_ ” Natalia asks, sliding into his bed. He’s been staring at the blank television screen for hours, trying to call up something _, anything._

 _“I keep thinking about the rumors,”_ he lies. It scares him, how good he is at lying, and what kind of person that made him before…what kind of person it makes him now, for hiding what little truth he has inside of him. He uses it when it suits him, like armor, to make scum like Dmitri fear him and suits like Petrovitch respect him.

“ _They can try to shut us down,_ ” Natalia murmurs, “ _but we will never surrender. Not until we have won.”_

Yasha doesn’t voice is doubts, his fears that death isn’t the worst thing that can happen to a man – or a world.

To go out fighting is one thing. To be forgotten in the aftermath is another.

Yasha just smiles back at Natalia and strokes her hair, as though he’s comforting them both.

And if she spars with him a little harder on the days he lies to her, well, he pretends that he’s just let something slip in the Drift.

While it lasts, Yasha could almost say he’s…well, happy wouldn’t be the right word. He doesn’t think he knows one.

*

2024

Hong Kong is disgusting and beautiful all at once.

Yasha takes in the boneslums, a place no man should live but thousands do; the lights of the city, red and orange; the neon against the ocean of black.

The helicopter whips his hair around his face when he steps onto the tarmac behind Natalia. They’re greeted by Marshal Nick Fury, a memorable figure with his eyepatch and long, leather coat flapping around him in the wind. He sizes the two of them up before turning to a woman dressed in a smart blue uniform with her hair chopped short.

“Natasha and Yasha Romanov, I’d like to introduce you to Maria Hill. She’s been in charge of handling your transfer and assembling you all here for Project Pegasus.” Hill eyes them sharply up and down as she shakes both of their hands.

“If you’ll follow me,” she says, turning sharply on her heel. Without further ado, she leads them into the Hong Kong Shatterdome.

It is chaos.

Yasha takes it all in, the engineers and workers, techs and cadets, trucks and dollies, Jaeger parts and – oh, even _kaiju_ parts.

Yasha stares at the man wearing a lab coat over a tweed jacket. He seems to be carrying a piece of a kaiju brain in a tank. The brain pulses, shivering like an octopus, and Yasha wonders what it is in those things that make them want to _kill._ (He wonders if it’s in his brain, too.)

“See, Banner? I told you they’d stare if you didn’t cover it up,” his companion says, a man in a greasy 90’s band t-shirt with a beard that makes him look like he’s trying to be a movie star. Yasha doesn’t bother to pretend he wasn’t staring.

“Tony Stark and Bruce Banner, two of our _brightest_ minds,” Hill introduces them. Yasha doesn’t think he imagines the wry twist of Hill’s mouth.

“You wanted to use your father’s Ranger jacket,” Banner protests. “I don’t think—“

“Ignore him,” the greasy one says to Yasha. “Call me Tony. Kaiju Science, Jaeger Engineering, occasional Ranger. I do it all.”

“And I’m Bruce,” the man in the lab coat says with a sideways look at Tony. “Kaiju Science. You must be—“

“Black Widow,” Natalia interjects, eyeing the two scientists carefully.

“Hello there,” Tony says, leering as he holds out a hand. “You must be Miss Romanov.”

 _“You’ll kick his ass first chance in the Kwoon, right, Nat?”_ Yasha mutters in Russian.

Tony laughs. “ _Point taken,”_ he replies in the same language, withdrawing his hand with a polite nod to Natalia. He turns to Yasha. “Although, if _you’re_ everup for a little one-on-one—“

“My friends!” someone booms, interrupting Tony. He and Bruce jump, but Natalia and Yasha just turn to stare at six feet of blond, Swedish muscle. “I see the Russian Rangers have arrived! Welcome to the Shatterdome,” he says, throwing an arm out to gesture at the mess of workers.

“This is Thor Odinson,” Hill supplies. “Of Valkyrie Thunder.”

“You know, Hill,” Tony says, throwing an arm up as though he’s about to drape it over her shoulders. Hill glares at him, and he must decide that he values his balls over his charm, because he backs off. “You’re a very busy woman. Why don’t you let us show them around, and you can get back to...whatever it is that you do all day.”

“You mean running this operation?” Hill counters, raising an eyebrow. “Don’t get them into any trouble, Stark,” she says before turning and leaving them. Thor chuckles to himself. Yasha decides that he likes Hill.

“Now that _that_ party pooper’s out of the way,” Tony says with a grin, throwing one arm around Yasha’s shoulder and the other around Natalia’s. “May I present to you…Humanity’s last defense.”

*

They see Mocking Goliath first, black and purple in all its glory, overseen by Clint Barton and Bobbi Morse, the two of them tangled up like newlyweds after a Drift.

Iron Patriot is little more than a shell, and Tony quiets when he passes. Yasha watches as Natalia nods once in sympathy, and wonders why it isn’t in the Jaeger graveyard in Malibu yet.

The crowd around the red and silver Jaeger known as Valkyrie Thunder is the loudest, and Sif grins as she shakes Yasha’s hand and nearly breaks it.

Then there’s Black Widow. As dark as night, sleek, and sexy, she’s a sight to behold. Yasha stares up at her like a lover. Tony whistles, long and low, and Thor actually applauds.

“She’s beautiful,” Bruce says in an undertone.

“Please,” Tony scoffs, “you act like you’ve never seen Falcon America. The guy who built her was –“

“An ass,” Bruce interrupts, but he’s smiling at Tony as he says it.

Yasha watches the two of them laugh, and doesn’t try to understand it. He stares at Falcon America as they pass, a Jaeger painted bright red and white.

“She’ll be carrying the nukes,” Tony explains, clapping his hands together, “going into the breach to bomb the suckers. The rest of us will run interference. It should be—“

“Is that --?”  Natalia interrupts him. Yasha turns.

“Witch Quick,” he mutters, eyes drifting over mangled metal and the craggy remains of the Jaeger. It had barely been a week since its last – and final – fight. Not enough time to have it shipped out.

“The Maximoff twins were good people,” Thor says, “Noble and brave. They will be missed.”

There is less spring in their step when they leave the Jaegers behind, and even less after Yasha and Natalia have been given the full tour.

It’s clear to them now.

They aren’t planning to win the war. They’re just planning to go out fighting.

*

The mess hall is crowded when Yasha gets there, trailing behind Natalia as she tells him in muttered Russian what she’d seen when she snuck around in the dead of night.

 _“These people have hope and little else,_ ” she murmurs as they fill their trays with food heavy with protein and calories, _“but you cannot run a Jaeger on hope.”_

There’s a moment of awkwardness where the two of them stand, staring out at the mess of tables, seemingly divided by Jaeger team or specialty, and they try to figure out where to sit. Then Thor stands up above the crowd and yells, “Romanovs! Come, join us!” in his booming voice.

Natalia glances at him and they share a flicker of a smile before they begin to walk across the mess hall, dodging cadets and techs.

Then, Yasha is stopped in the middle of the room by a man with shoulders built like a Jaeger’s and eyes set wide in disbelief.

“Bucky?” the man asks in English, his voice full of shock.

“Who the hell is Bucky?” Yasha spits, clenching his fists around his tray. Natalia is at his side in an instant.

“You…” the man reaches out, as though he’s about to touch Yasha’s face, but stops when a hand presses into his shoulder.

“Steve, let it go,” the man’s friend says, and after a moment, they walk away.

“What’d you say to them?” Bobbi Morse asks as they sit down. “That’s Steve Rogers and Sam Wilson. Falcon America.”

“Yeah, what was that about?” Clint Barton nods, stealing a carrot from his spouse’s plate. “Even Stark has never pissed off Rogers that bad.” Bruce snorts, and Tony attempts to look offended.

“Nothing,” Yasha shrugs. Natalia watches him out of the corner of her eye. “He was just saying hello.”

But there’s something about Rogers’ expression that keeps him up half the night.

*

Rogers comes to apologize the next day.

Yasha watches through the peephole in his door as Rogers hesitates outside. After a few moments, Rogers sets his jaw resolutely and knocks.

Yasha counts to seven before he opens, raising an eyebrow, like he’s surprised.

“Good morning,” Rogers says, “I’m Steve Rogers, one of the pilots of the Falcon America. I’d like to apologize for yesterday.”

 _He’d like to apologize,_ Yasha thinks, _but he hasn’t._

Yasha wants to snap at Rogers, tell him to go away, to leave him alone. He doesn’t.

“Who’s Bucky?” he asks instead.

Rogers hesitates. He looks awkward, standing a few inches below Yasha on the doorstep. Yasha waits.

“Ever heard of Star Soldier?” Rogers asks.

“No,” Yasha shrugs. Rogers looks surprised.

“He was my co-pilot,” Rogers explains. Yasha blinks once. “You…look like him.”

“Okay.” Yasha can feel Rogers’ discomfort, so he remains silent, letting it build so Rogers will feel awkward and leave.

“I’ll let you get back to Natasha, then,” Rogers says as he finally turns away.

“She’s not here,” Yasha says, then instantly wishes he’d kept his mouth shut. Rogers pauses.

“But I thought you two were—“

“She saved my life,” Yasha explains. “Took me in. So I took her name.”

“You didn’t have one of your own?”

“Amnesia,” Yasha sighs impatiently, wondering if Rogers has even picked up his file. “I was the only survivor of a shipwreck.”

“I’m sorry,” Rogers says, with seemingly genuine sympathy. Yasha just shrugs.

He watches Rogers leave through his peephole, pulls out his tablet, and types a name into the PPDC’s database.

*

James “Bucky” Buchanan Barnes was last seen falling into the jaws of Zola, the kaiju that had all but destroyed Star Soldier and nearly killed Steve Rogers.

Yasha knows the name Star Soldier. It was the name of the Jaeger that had attempted to save his ship before it went down. They’d never been able to find a written record of the ship’s crew, or any missing men in Alaska that fit Yasha’s description and could plausibly be him.

Yasha had found a home in the Vladivostok Shatterdome and in Black Widow beside Natalia, and he didn’t question a good thing when it was handed to him. Not when he figured that his life before hadn’t been so easy. Surely, his life as a Ranger was better than that of a fisherman’s.

There was nothing worth pursing in his past, Yasha was certain of that.

But when he looked at the pictures of James Barnes, with his short dark hair and skinny face – for all intents and purposes, his twin – he saw no kinship in his eyes.

Yasha wondered what it was Steve Rogers had seen in him.

*

It’s getting late in the Kwoon when he’s done with his session of training the cadets. Pepper Potts (sharp, competent, classy Pepper Potts, in charge of the Jaeger Academy here) had found him black-market cigarettes that had been easier to find in Russia. Yasha owed her the favor.

They’re good kids – they have to be good; they’re the future if they ever make it that far – but Yasha would rather spend his time training with Natalia than yelling at Bishop, Kaplan, and Bradley. Barton’s better with the kids, honestly, and Natalia tries to have nothing to do with them if she can help it.

He’d say it’s a surprise to see Rogers in the Kwoon, after even Chavez has left, but he’s been expecting this.

“Yasha,” Rogers nods in greeting. Yasha realizes that it’s the first time Rogers has ever called him by name.

“Rogers,” Yasha nods. He walks over to the rack of hanbō and puts the two in his hands back.

“I think I know who you are,” Rogers says.

 _Good,_ Yasha thinks, _he gets right to the point._

“Do you?” Yasha asks, like he doesn’t know what Rogers is about to say.

“James Buchanan Barnes,” Rogers says. “February 29th, 2020. While in combat against the kaiju Zola, the hull was breached. He fell from the Conn-Pod.”

“You’re wrong. He’s dead. I’m sorry,” Yasha says plainly. He turns his back on Rogers and pretends to straighten the equipment.

“Natasha found you, the only survivor of the shipwreck, floating in the sea close to where Zola was finally taken down.”

“You think I’m your friend.”

“Why else do you look just like him?” Rogers asks. “Bucky, I—“

“No,” Yasha snaps. “I’m not him. He died, Rogers. I’m sorry.”

“You don’t remember,” Rogers says, forlorn. “You could be anyone.”

“Yes, I could. But not him.” Yasha knows it’s likely. But he also knows that desperate men are willing to believe anything – that’s why he’s here in Hong Kong in the first place: desperation and hope – and he doesn’t want to live a lie just to help Rogers sleep better at night.

“How do you know?” Rogers says. He walks over and stands by Yasha’s side. “What if your memories are gone because you were ripped from the neural handshake? What if you can regain them?”

“There’s nothing for me in the Drift,” Yasha says. Nothing but pain and emptiness. He turns away.

“Drift with me,” Rogers says. “See if you remember.” Yasha shakes his head. “Drift with me!” Rogers repeats.

When Yasha doesn’t say a word, Rogers picks up a hanbō, tapping Yasha lightly on the shoulder.

“Fine. Have it your way. Fight me. But let’s fight properly. You win, I leave you alone. I win, you Drift with me.”

Yasha half-turns.

“How do you know we’re Drift compatible?” he asks.

“I guess the fight will prove that,” is all Rogers says.

Yasha shrugs off his jacket. He’s wearing nothing but a plain white tank top underneath. Rogers stares at him and the metal prosthesis he calls an arm.

“Your Bucky have one of these?” Yasha grunts, flexing his arm. Rogers stares at the place where it meets his shoulder. The skin is marred, pink and swollen from the prosthesis, and covered in scar tissue from where his arm was ripped from him. When Rogers finally looks at Yasha, he sees pity in the blue eyes staring at him.

“Can you still fight?” Rogers asks.

He doesn’t even give Rogers an opportunity to take a stance before he whips around, hanbō clutched in his metal hand, and strikes.

Rogers blocks it and doesn’t flinch.

“That’s cheating,” he observes, but he’d obviously expected it.

“There are no rules when you’re fighting kaiju,” Yasha counters, diving away from a butt from Rogers’ hanbō.

“You’re wrong.” _Thwack,_ and the wooden sticks smack into each other. “There are the rules of gravity. Of nature. Those are the rules of every fight,” Rogers says, without breaking his concentration. He goes for Yasha’s ankle, just to be cute, and Yasha smirks in spite of himself as he steps away – and curses when he’s rewarded with a sharp hit against his ribs.

“One – zero,” Rogers says in satisfaction.

He cuts the chatter after that, despite how tempting it is. Together, they fall into a reluctant rhythm, their bodies drifting into a flow as they step _one, two, three_ ; their centers twisting and dipping; feet pirouetting in unison. Yasha leans back as Rogers pushes forward. Rogers ducks as Yasha swings. The room is quiet except for the smack of their feet on the mat and the sounds of their breathing, controlled but heavy.

“That’s enough,” someone says.

At once, Yasha and Rogers step apart. They turn to see Marshal Fury glaring at the two of them with his single eye. Bishop stands silently behind him, the little tattle-tale.

“You’ve proved your point,” Fury says. “Get some rest. You’ll need it.” He turns and leaves, coat swishing behind him. Bishop follows close behind.

Yasha calmly returns his hanbō and slides into his jacket. He heads towards the exit.

“Does that answer your question on whether or not we’re Drift compatible?” Rogers asks. Yasha stops. “I won,” Rogers continues. “You going to keep your promise?”

The question hangs in the empty Kwoon.

“A deal’s a deal,” Yasha mutters under his breath. He stalks back to his room.

*

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” Tony says from the LOCCENT. His voice carries through the comm link to the Conn-Pod in Falcon America where Yasha and Rogers are waiting.

“Really, Stark? You jumped at the chance,” says Carol Danvers, Jumphawk pilot and snarker extraordinaire. “I’m surprised they’re _letting_ them do it.”

“Please,” Sam Wilson’s voice follows with a chuckle. “I’d like to see Steve bend because someone wouldn’t _let_ him do something.” Danvers laughs.

Rogers turns to Yasha, ignoring the voices.

“You ready for this?” he asks.

“Let’s just get it over with,” Yasha says, resigned to having to listen to Rogers’ memories of Bucky until the neural handshake is broken.

He wonders if Rogers will be shocked by the lack of his memories while they’re in the Drift. Natasha had, at first, until she’d quickly covered it up with determination and, strangest of all to Yasha, compassion.

“Neural bridge initializing.”

As Tony starts the countdown, Rogers turns to Yasha yet again.

“Try to remember,” he says.

A single moment passes before they drop into the Drift together, and Yasha lets himself think, _It might be nice to be half as loved as this Bucky._

And then –

_Sick, sick, always sick, spending night after night coughing and wheezing_

_Mom’s dead and dad’s gone and_

Remember.

_He was too young for the army, but there’s always the Jaeger Academy_

Remember.

_Howard dies, his mentor, his hero, and then his son catches Stane selling black-market kaiju parts as weapons and Peggy chooses him out of all the other recruits and he’s more than the PPDC’s experiment, their risk, he’s the youngest and the best and_

_Bucky Barnes is sixteen and beautiful and the youngest to pilot a Jaeger, not that anyone knows it but him and Steve, because he lied on the enlistment forms just like_

Remember.

_He moves like a dancer and laughs at Steve while he spars him, while they eat in the mess, while they fight kaiju and over what music to listen to and he even chuckles when they slide into bed together to ward off the nightmares_

Remember who you are.

_Bucky is only nineteen when he dies and it isn’t fair, Steve never got to say goodbye, Steve never got to say_

_Falling falling he’s falling he’s cold and he can’t breathe and there’s water rushing into his lungs and he can’t swim, he’s supposed to be able to swim, but his arm can’t hold him afloat_

_Natalia found him in a half-torn-away drivesuit, why hadn’t she said_

_Steve couldn’t pilot a Jaeger no not again no not after he’d lost so much_

_The last thing he’d seen was Steve’s face how had he forgotten Steve how_

_but Fury needed him, the world needed him_

_and it hurt, it hurt so much_

“Shut it down!” someone yells from the LOCCENT.

_Natalia. Natasha._

_Peggy._

“Stark, what the hell do you think you’re doing? That Jaeger is armed, and you—“

“Coulson, I was just—“

_You should have left me alone, Steve._

_Bucky—_

And then the neural handshake is cut.

*

The rapping on his door won’t stop, but all Bucky wants to do is catch a little sleep.

“Bucky?” Steve calls again. “Please? Bucky – Yasha – let me in.”

He thinks he hears murmuring, and it’s probably Natalia, who he _does not_ want to hear from right now.

“I told you to go—“

Bucky hesitates in the threshold of the door he’s just flung open when he’s faced with not only Steve, but Tony, Carol, Bruce, Thor, Sif, Bobbi, and even Clint. His eyes waver over Natalia in the back. Her face is downcast.

“Well, yeah, but we just want to know that you’re alright,” Tony says.

Steve just stares.

“I’m fine,” Bucky spits out, even though he’s not. Even though his new memories tell him that Steve won’t buy that lie for a second. It doesn’t matter how good of a liar he once thought he was. Steve’s face falls as he sees through it all.

The door slams shut with a clang.

*

Black Widow is out for the count, so it’s the Mocking Goliath that goes up against Skrull.

Maybe Bucky should be grateful for that, because Barton comes back a widower, broken from loss.

Bucky watches as Natalia – Natasha, now, really – sits at his bedside as she once did for him. She helps Barton with the hearing aids he has to wear after his drivesuit malfunction. She teaches him how to read lips. Bucky wonders why she’s drawn to the wounded, what she’s trying to heal in herself.

Valkyrie Thunder takes down the kaiju in the end, but not before it takes out part of a city.

There are more coming, Bruce promises with a scowl. He swings his fist in frustration and knocks a mug of cold coffee off his laboratory table. It shatters on the ground.

Tony just smirks, like this is going to be one hell of a ride.

*

 “I lied when I said I was a Ranger,” Natasha says when she finally shows up at his door. He’d left it cracked open, an invitation.

“You lied about a lot of things,” Bucky replies, not even bitter anymore.

“I was a Ranger for three months before I lost my co-pilot. After that, they dismissed me. I joined up with a search and rescue crew. That’s when I found you.”

“Did you know I was a Ranger?” he asks.

Natasha steps into his room and sits on the narrow bed beside him.

“Not at first. Your drivesuit was shredded, and foreign to us…it wasn’t until we were back at the Shatterdome that we realized what it was.”

“And you decided not to tell me.” Bucky tries to say it without blame, but he finds that he can’t. “Why did – _how_ did you hide that from me?”

“I know ways to keep my secrets in the Drift,” Natasha shrugs. “You didn’t remember. There was no use pushing a persona on you if it would only cause you pain.” When Natasha pauses, Bucky opens his mouth to interrupt her. “At least,” she continues before he can, “that’s what I told myself while you recovered.”

“And when I did?”

Natasha looks at his arm, and then meets Bucky’s eye.

“James,” she whispers, “you never did. Neither did I.”

This is how Bucky learns that Natasha has done things she isn’t proud of, things she wishes she could fix.

He thinks he finally understands.

*

He finds Steve standing outside on the tarmac with his back to the Shatterdome, staring out over the metal railing at the neon lights of Hong Kong. His hands are shoved into the pockets of his jacket against the chill.

“Got the kaiju blues?” Bucky says as he stops at Steve’s side. He leans forward onto the railing and kicks a foot up onto it. Steve doesn’t turn to look at him.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve heard you say that,” Steve says. The light of the city plays over his face as he speaks, painting him in blues and yellows.

“It’s been a long time since I said it,” Bucky replies.

“You’re back now,” Steve says firmly. “That’s all that matters.”

Bucky is tempted to lie, to tell Steve that he’s right, that he’s back. It’s a symptom of a deranged sense of duty, the need to prove himself to Steve, which burns in his veins. He wants to be worthy of Steve’s pride, to earn his confidence. But it’s because of that that he can’t lie to Steve, can’t risk the disappointment in his eyes when he finds out (and he will find out, the universe never works in Bucky’s favor) that he’s wrong.

“It’s not,” he says, voice harsh. “There are…things you don’t know, Steve. Things I’ve done that I’m not proud of.”

“It doesn’t matter. You weren’t yourself,” Steve replies. Bucky feels his shoulders tighten.

“Wasn’t I?” Bucky spits. “Wasn’t it me? The same talents, the same thoughts, it was all me. _I_ made those choices. Every one of them.”

“You didn’t have your memories. Whatever you did,” Steve swallows, pausing for a moment, “it wasn’t really _you._ ”

“But it _was_ ,” Bucky spits, slapping the wet railing with his metal hand. _Clang._ The sound echoes in his ears.

“Bucky—“

“It was me who stole, and cheated, and lied,” Bucky continues, voice cracking. “I hurt people, I did whatever I could to get into a Jaeger and I didn’t care. It’s not – it wasn’t new. It was me. I knew it was wrong, but I didn’t care. I could’ve done that stuff before.”

“But you didn’t,” Steve says. “And that’s what matters; when you knew _why_ it was important to do what’s right, you did the right thing. You’re not a bad person, Buck.”

Bucky chuckles bitterly, his laugh catching in the bottom of his throat.

“It’s not black and white like that,” he says. “We tell ourselves we’re doing the right thing, making the right choices for the right reasons, but it’s not simple. You think I got into a Jaeger out of some sense of duty? I’m not you, Steve. Not everyone’s like you. I did it for the glory, the money, I always did. That didn’t change.”

“Bucky—“

“You know, it wasn’t just kaiju blood that I spilled for the rush.” Bucky turns away from the lights of the city to rest his back against the railing.

“You treat me like I’m perfect,” Steve says. He sounds disappointed, which seems right to Bucky. He should be. Bucky deserves that. “You’ve made mistakes. I get that, and I—“

“No, you _don’t_ ,”  Bucky sneers, because he’s tired of being lied to and coddled, handled with the kid gloves or treated like a time bomb, when he just wants someone to be _honest_ with him for once. “You don’t understand, Steve,” he spits, “because you’ve never become something dangerous. You’ve never hurt something for the look of fear in its eyes, or woke up the next morning thinking, ‘what have I done?’ You’ve never had people lie to you all the time, like they’re afraid to let you know the truth. That’s what I have to live with, _every day._ ”

“I think I understand just fine. You want the truth?” Steve says suddenly, turning away from the railing to glare at Bucky. He squares his shoulders, as though he was preparing for a fight. “You want me to be honest?” He doesn’t wait for an answer, just shakes his head and growls, “You’re acting like a child, Bucky. You keep talking about yourself, like you’re the only one who matters. We’re in a war. People are dying – I’ve lost people I cared about, more than you can imagine – and you’re talking about the past.”

“That’s not—“

 “My advice to you?” Steve says over his protests. “Find something to do other than standing around uselessly. Stop fighting me, stop fighting Natasha, and fight the damn war. God knows we need _someone_ to do that right now.”

“What, like you?” Bucky sneers. “Fight because I need to show how great I am?”

“That’s not why I fight,” Steve spits.

“Yeah, because you’ve got nothing to prove,” Bucky growls back. “Get off your high horse –“ He’s cut off by the whining noise of sirens echoing across the tarmac and fading into the sound of the ocean.

Kaiju.

Steve barely spares Bucky a final glance before he turns, running off towards the entrance to the Shatterdome.

“Yeah, go ahead,” Bucky yells after him, “go fight your precious war.”

*

“We’ve got two Category IVs!” Phil Coulson reports from the LOCCENT, his voice seemingly controlled and steady amidst the chaos. Bucky thinks he hears an edge of panic in his usually calm voice. “Someone call Stark up here – and tell Banner he’s right.”

Falcon America is there before the others, but the first kaiju (Red Skull, named for its gaunt, scarlet body) swims right past. Thankfully, Valkyrie Thunder is on its way, and they manage to hold the kaiju off.

Bucky stares as Sif and Thor, two larger than life people in a larger than life Jaeger, pound on the kaiju.

On the other screens, he watches Clint and Natasha jump into a Jaeger together. With a different design, paint job, and fighting style, he barely recognizes it, but he knows. It’s Black Widow.

They go after Mandarin, the other kaiju. It’s brutal to watch the Black Widow change into something new, something more fluid, more controlled than ever before. She spars with the kaiju and shoots the plasma cannon, but it only roars in anger.

Widow Eye, Coulson calls the Stark-modified Jaeger as she switches between it and the others on the holoscreens. It fits, too.

Bucky can’t watch them for long. He finds himself drawn back to the other screens. Falcon America is holding on, but barely. He can just make out Steve’s face through the helmet on his drivesuit. He looks pained but determined, if the steel in his voice and the line of his jaw is anything to go by.

“This has gotta be hell for you,” Tony Stark says, appearing from nowhere.

Bucky turns, hiding the fact that Tony managed to sneak up on him. He watches as Stark types something into a computer under Coulson’s watchful eye, bringing up Jaeger plans and video feeds.

“No, being out _there_ would be hell,” Bucky answers, saying what he thinks Tony wants to hear.

“You’re full of shit,” Tony says, looking up from the specs of Falcon America. “It’s the rush, right? You love the rush of the fight. Being in control of something for once – especially when it’s as beautiful as a Jaeger. That’s why we all do it.” Tony smiles wryly. “And then, we say some shit about it being our duty,” he finishes, waving a hand dismissively before turning back to his work.

Bucky raises an eyebrow as he looks at Tony.

“And that’s hell?” he asks.

“No. Hell is _watching_ ,” Tony continues in an undertone. “Hell is staring at these screens as people– people you care about – fight monsters. Hell is being helpless.”

Bucky barely has time to open his mouth before the LOCCENT is filled with Coulson’s shouting, and Tony is swept away from him by Hill and Fury for more pressing issues.

*

They lose Valkyrie Thunder first.

Bucky watches with clenched fists as Thor and Sif go down with the ship. The LOCCENT is strangely calm, the techs glued to their screens while Coulson gives clipped commands and murmurs to Hill and Fury.

Tony, on the other hand, yells at the lackeys under his authority, telling them to push harder, fix the coding on Black Widow, get a Jumphawk out there already, assign a diving crew, search the water, check for escape pods… He’s a flurry of motion, all the chaos of the Shatterdome come to life in one man. He’s in his element.

Hill interrupts Tony to tell him, “Stark, Valkyrie Thunder doesn’t have escape pods.” He has to know that, Bucky thinks, he knows these Jaegers better than anyone.

But Bucky watches as Tony stops in mid-motion; his eyes sparkle with thought and a muscle in his jaw clenches.

He turns jerkily before he says, “Fuck this. I’m getting into a Jaeger.”

“No, you are _not,_ ” Fury interrupts, stepping forwards. Bucky’s eyes snap to follow the conversation.

“Hell, yeah, I am,” Tony continues, bringing up the specs for his Jaeger. “It’ll take me _minutes_ to fire her up, I can use the JARVIS program to double-check the coding, and then—“

“You’re here on a consultant basis only, Stark,” Fury says with a glare. “I have bigger problems than your issues right now, so get your ass into gear and help the Jaegers I have on the field.”

Tony opens his mouth to reply, but an alarm goes off on Coulson’s control board, and everyone’s attention snaps back to Widow Eye on the screens. Tony turns back to his computers and mutters to himself under his breath.

“We’ve got a shot,” Barton calls, voice crackling through the speakers.

“Negative, Barton, do not fire,” Coulson says urgently into the microphone. “There’s a leak in your systems. A shot from the plasma bow will spark an explosion.”

“We’re not going to take Mandarin down without the plasma bow,” Natasha yells through the comms, gritting her teeth hard.

“You will _not_ fire that plasma bow, are you listening?” Coulson says. There’s a strain in his voice that Bucky has never heard before, emotion that he didn’t know Coulson even had. “That is not an option. What are your alternatives?”

Coulson’s voice must shake Tony out of his sulk, because Bucky watches as he stiffens and closes the Iron Patriot blueprints on his screens. Instead, Tony pulls up the specs for Widow Eye and the blueprints of one of the Jumphawk helicopters that carry the Jaegers into battle.

“There aren’t any,” Barton snaps. “My – the left arm is out of commission except for firing, and we’ll never stop it with just one arm. There’s a city with seven million people in it behind us that’ll die if we don’t stop this, Coulson, there’s no other way--”

“There has to be another way!” Coulson yells, drawing stares from the techs surrounding him. At his station, Tony is still typing away.

Natasha replies, in a tone that is grim and determined and that Bucky is all too familiar with, “There isn’t.”

“You can’t--

“Actually,” Tony interrupts, holding up a finger in Coulson’s direction and finally looking up from his computer, “there is.” Coulson stares at him for a second before he crosses his arms.

“Well?”

“Is Danvers headed out to Valkyrie Thunder?” Tony asks. “I need her. Get her on the line with me. And tell Clint and Natasha to hang tight.”

*

Bucky watches in disbelief as one of the Jumphawk helicopters _lands_ on top of the kaiju. He’s barely met Carol Danvers (she’s Tony and Steve’s friend, not his), but whoever she is, she’s got guts.

Tony’s almost taken control of the LOCCENT by now, working alongside a reluctant Coulson, who’s helping Falcon America while Tony focuses on Widow Eye. Bucky watches his eyes dart back to the other screens every once in awhile, furtively checking and double-checking Clint and Natasha’s vitals’ readings.

Tony, on the other hand, is a mess of motion, his fingers breezing across the keys as he raps instructions to Danvers that Bucky can barely follow.

“I think it’s distracted,” Danvers yells over the comms as the kaiju swats at the Jumphawk on top of its head. She pilots the chopper back into the air, but not before she’s taken out one of its sensitive eyes with the helicopter. “What now?”

She narrowly avoids a swipe of kaiju claw with some clever piloting, and Barton whoops his approval from Widow Eye.

“Draw it away from Widow Eye. Make it turn its back,” Tony directs Danvers. “Think _Tom and Jerry_.”

“You have me up here playing cat and mouse, Stark,” Danvers drawls. “Really?”

Mandarin doesn’t want to give up its prey so easily, though, not for the insignificant little fly buzzing in its ear. It turns back to Widow Eye, opening its jagged jaws to roar at the Jaeger –

\-- As Danvers shoots rocket launchers into its mouth from the modified Jumphawk.

Mandarin’s hurt, stumbling backwards as Danvers flies out of reach. Widow Eye steps forwards in her absence, striking Mandarin for all she’s worth. After the first blow, Natasha and Barton plunge the sharp dagger attachment on the Jaeger’s operational right arm into Mandarin. There’s a brutal efficiency in their work that he recognizes as Natasha’s style, but the fluidity, the accuracy of the blows that bring the kaiju down – that’s Barton.

“Think we could utilize those more often?” Hill asks Stark as Danvers fires the rest of her rocket launchers into the beast.

“It’s not that effective,” Tony shrugs. “Unless you have an open mouth or wound, it isn’t going to do damage at all. The idea is to distract them,” he says, flicking a few switches on the controls to Widow Eye, shutting down fuel lines to minimize the leakage, “that way they won’t notice the fatal blow—“

Stark is cut off by a high pitched noise, followed by Steve’s voice over the comms, yelling, “What the hell--?” before the connection is lost.

Falcon America goes offline.

*

Fury doesn’t stop Tony this time, although Bucky has half a mind to – for different reasons, obviously. He wants to jump into that Jaeger beside Tony. He wants to make Red Skull bleed. He wants Steve back.

“Iron Pa—Marvel isn’t digital, you see, like Falcon America or Black Widow,” Tony explains as Bucky helps him into his drivesuit.

“Is that supposed to mean something to me?” Bucky asks.

“It’s arc reactor technology,” Tony grins as Bucky helps him snap into the chest piece. “The pulse that took out -- Hey, Danvers!” Tony calls as Carol Danvers sprints into the room. She’s still soaked from rain and wearing her headset and bomber jacket from the Jumphawk. “What took you so long?”

“I could say the same to you, Stark,” she grins as she begins to strap on her drivesuit. “I didn’t think your baby was ready to fly.”

“I’m wounded, Danvers, really,” Tony laughs. “Iron Marvel is – well, marvelous. I just made a few finishing touches, and JARVIS is running the code for errors right now. She’s shipshape. Airshape. Whatever shape is ready.” Danvers raises an eyebrow as the last piece of her suit clicks into place.

“We’ll see,” she smirks.

The two of them climb into the Conn-Pod. They disappear from Bucky’s sight without another thought or word to him.

He doesn’t even consider going back to the LOCCENT. He can’t watch in silence anymore.

Bucky walks across the Shatterdome floor and stands on the wet tarmac outside in the drizzle, waiting for the Jumphawks to bring back Falcon America…with or without its pilots.

*

The chopper lands after what seems like hours. The wind from its landing sends the rain flying in all directions, makes the puddles on the black tarmac ripple, and whips Bucky’s hair around his face. He feels cold.

Two people get out of the Jumphawk. They’re wearing the uniforms of the PPDC, not drivesuits, Bucky notices with a pang. He watches silently as they turn back and pull out a stretcher.

Bucky’s heart pounds in his ears. Before he knows it, he’s running towards the chopper, splashing through the rain towards the stretcher. It’s not until he sees that Sam Wilson laying on it that he stops.

“What happened?” he asks Sam urgently as they pull the wheels out on the stretcher.

“Bastard had an EMP pulse,” Sam scowls when he sees Bucky. “It shut us down and we got knocked around -- c’mon, guys, isn’t the stretcher a bit much?” he protests as they wheel him away. Bucky turns back to the helicopter.

Steve climbs out.

He’s dripping wet, still wearing his drivesuit with the helmet in his hand. He looks bruised and battered, with a split lip and a bruise high on his cheekbone, but it’s Steve. He’s intact. He’s _alive._

Bucky is so relieved to see him that he doesn’t think twice as he steps up to meet him, throwing his arms around Steve’s shoulders to pull him close. Their foreheads press together for an instant before Steve leans forward and kisses him, for all the world and the Shatterdome to see, if they cared.

He tastes of sea water and blood – salt and iron – like piloting a Jaeger.

“Bucky,” Steve says, holding their foreheads together and lifting a hand to brush Bucky’s hair out of his face.

“You’re alive,” Bucky breathes, his voice low in the back of his throat.

“So are you,” Steve says. He brushes his thumb over the crest of Bucky’s cheek, wiping away the rain. “Sif,” he whispers in a broken voice, “and Thor. We heard about them, but it went offline before…”

“Natasha’s safe,” Bucky says, “and Clint. But they haven’t found anything of the others. And Tony--”

“Tony?” Steve asks in concern.

“He’s crazy,” Bucky chuckles. “I like him. He took off with Danvers in that Jaeger of his. I don’t know...” he trails off. “What are we going to do, Steve? If we lose any more?”

“We’re going to get into a Jaeger and destroy those bastards,” Steve says, a steely glint entering his eye. “And we’re going to win.”

*

A lot happens overnight.

Iron Marvel finishes Mandarin, takes down Red Skull, and returns triumphant. The engineers work tirelessly to bring the Jaegers back to perfect working order. Bruce Banner drifts with a kaiju _again_ and has to be talked down by Tony to stop him from tearing apart his lab in a monster-induced rage.

Bucky spends the night curled up against Steve in the medical ward by Sam’s bedside. When Natasha walks into the room, she presses her lips together at the sight of his head on Steve’s shoulder, but doesn’t say anything.

Bucky’s glad. He’s been looking for something for a long time. He’s not sure he’s found it, but he’s found something. Something good, he thinks.

He thinks of Thor and Sif. Bobbi. Dmitri. Namor. Toro. Howard Stark and Peggy Carter and countless others, names stretching off into the distance. He wonders if it’s worth it.

Steve’s wondered the same, too, although neither of them has ever voiced it out loud. Is it worth it?

The right answer seems to be, of course it is. Everything has a cost, but they’re buying a better tomorrow. They’re buying their freedom.

But Bucky doesn’t know if that’s _his_ answer.

“You were right,” he mutters into Steve’s shoulder. Steve stiffens, tilting his head to look down at Bucky.

“What?” he says, eyebrows knitting together.

“You’re always right,” Bucky continues sleepily. He sits up, raising his head from Steve’s shoulder, and looks down at his lap. “There are better things to fight than you. Better things to prove.”

“You don’t have to prove anything,” Steve says softly. He glances at Sam, asleep in his cot, and stands up. Bucky follows him out of the room and into the grimily lit halls. “What are you trying to do here, Buck? Make up for the past?” he asks.

“I guess,” Bucky shrugs. “I hurt a lot of people to get where I am now. I suppose I’d like a shot at redemption. A second chance. And, if we don’t stop them…there’s no hope for that.”

“You want to fight for it,” Steve says. It isn’t a question. He slings an arm around Bucky’s shoulders just like he always used to. Bucky leans into the touch.

The kaiju will keep coming, and Bucky’s finally decided. He’s going to fight them until he can’t fight any more.

*

“What the hell are you all staring at me for?” Fury says to the rallied masses; the techs and cadets, medics and scientists, engineers, Jumphawk pilots, and Rangers. His eye travels over each of them, as though he’s saying goodbye – or perhaps instilling a sentiment in humanity’s last defense.

“Get out there and win this war for us!” Fury yells finally.

He’s met by a rousing chorus of, “Yes, sir!” from the assembled Rangers.

As the rest of the crowd cheers, Bucky glances over at Steve. He’s striking in his dark blue drivesuit, even standing next to Tony and Carol in their bright red, and Clint and Natasha in black. It’s the six of them against the kaiju and the Precursors, if Bruce is right. The six of them, the three Jaegers – Iron Marvel, Widow Eye, and Commander Winter – against another world.

Steve claps Bucky on the shoulder, bringing him out of his thoughts and back to the Shatterdome, where the Rangers are headed towards their Jaegers. Natasha gives him a final smile before she turns back to Clint. Bucky looks back at Steve, searching his face.

“You following?” Steve asks, taking a step back questioningly.

Bucky grins. “Anywhere.”

_The End._

**Author's Note:**

> I kind of sketched out Star Soldier while I was writing this fic and posted the drawing [on my tumblr](http://sarriane.tumblr.com/post/59065953516), if anyone wants to see how I imagined the glory days of Steve and Bucky. I wish I had enough skill and free time to draw more Jaegers, they're so much fun!


End file.
